Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Constituents of my electorate of Hindmarsh and constituents of all electorates around the nation look for a federal government that hears their concerns and then acts on those concerns. Regardless of what this opposition tries to spin, the people have a government that does listen and that does act on their concerns. The responsiveness of this Rudd Labor government has been ably demonstrated through its response to the communities concerned regarding beef imports. We have seen over the last couple of weeks members of our community, including members in my electorate, express their concerns over consumer safety measures which maintain our restrictions on beef affected by BSE or, as it is known, mad cow disease. We have seen MPs, I being one, representing such concerns to the responsible ministers. We have seen ministers act in support of the expressed needs and concerns of the community by delivering active, responsive government.

After doing an interview on the Leon Byner program on 5AA in Adelaide and listening to people who called in or who rang my office about this issue, I wrote to four of my colleagues—the ministers and parliamentary secretaries—putting forward the views that were expressed to me by my constituents over time on both beef imports and the longstanding inadequacy of food labelling rules that we continue to endure. To this government’s credit, the voices of Hindmarsh constituents were well and clearly heard. Consumers are now comforted by the announcements that were made last week by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Tony Burke, on the continuation of those blanket bans.

Our ban on beef from BSE affected countries has served us well. To their credit, the controls and safety measures put in place through the European Community has stopped the disease and continues to diminish its potential to impact on the public. Infections continue to decrease, monitoring goes on and affected animals removed and destroyed. The world remains vigilant but confident. Adjustment of Australia’s blanket ban was requested by Australia’s Red Meat Advisory Council, which represents many of the peak organisations that make up the beef industry. The Red Meat Advisory Council argued that it was imperative to make our standards more consistent with those set by the World Organisation for Animal Health. While there may be every reason to support such an update in standards, consumers in my electorate and around the nation put the case for maintaining existing standards with great emotion.

I had many residents in my electorate phoning and telling me of their fear of going mad, literally, as a result of eating BSE beef. I had radio talkback listeners from the Leon Byner program concluding that the beef market would be a lucky dip in beef safety with consumers having no idea where any beef was from or how diseased it may be. We heard that major supermarket chains were going to resort to advertising that they were continuing to supply fresh beef sourced exclusively from Australian stock, as they had been, simply to help people deal with their fear. Their identified need to publicise the fact that all of their fresh beef was Australian is due to the previous government’s determination to require country of origin labelling on some types of animals but, interestingly, not on beef. They imposed country of origin labelling requirements on fish and they imposed country of origin labelling on pork, but for reasons only known to the opposition they blatantly refused to impose country of origin labelling on beef.

If the previous government had not baulked at labelling beef, consumers would have known they could have bought or disregarded beef from any given country and much of the fear experienced in the community over recent weeks would not have developed. But it is up to this Labor government to fix this gaping hole in labelling standards—this bizarre yet strangely deliberate omission in facilitating consumer choice and protection. Food labelling laws are just one more dusty, neglected and broken hand-me-down that this Labor government has inherited from the Liberal-National coalition. It is up to this Rudd Labor government to deliver what the public and beef eaters galore expect from a government that listens to what they say. We were elected to deliver. We have delivered and continue to deliver we will, regardless of what has been said and the spin that takes place on the opposite side. (Time expired)